ATHLETE Toolkit – General Public

Find out about chemical and air pollution and how it can affect your health, how to identify and replace or remove harmful personal care products, and how to advocate for change.

Every day, we come into contact with all kinds of things—some good for us, like parks and nature spaces, and others that can be bad, like air pollution and harmful chemicals in our everyday products.

 

Scientists have been studying the impact of coming into contact with (‘being exposed to’) air pollution for a long time. We know that we are exposed to air pollutants from a variety of outdoor sources including vehicle emissions, wood burning, agricultural practices, and manufacturing. We are also exposed to air pollutants inside our homes from cooking and cleaning.

 

Not only that, but the products we use in our everyday lives can contribute to our chemical exposures. For example, storing or heating foods in plastic containers can increase the amount of harmful hormone-disrupting chemicals migrating into your food or drink and can increase the amount of these chemicals detected in your body. This can also happen when we use personal care products (like soap, deodorant, toothpaste, shampoo, fragrances) and make-up which contain these harmful chemicals.

 

In ATHLETE, we have been working to understand more about where we are exposed to these air and chemical pollutants and how we can reduce our contact with them. Here you can find resources created by us as well as signposting to trusted sources to:

  • Learn about the effects of air pollution and chemical exposures on health
  • Learn how you can reduce your exposures

 

 

What is air pollution and chemical pollution, where does it come from, and why is it harmful?

Air pollution

We know that air pollutants, such as those coming from traffic, can negatively impact on health for everyone, from children to older adults. Air pollution is linked to a large number of health issues, including lung disease and asthma, heart health, birth outcomes like head circumference and birth weight, and cognitive development.

 

Read more about air pollution including sources of pollution:

Rather watch a video?

 

In Born in Bradford, we have spent years studying what our population is exposed to and how it can impact their health. We have brought our evidence together in this note, together with how our research has impacted policy and practice.

 

Chemical pollution

Chemicals are everywhere, from making our plastic containers strong but flexible, to their use as antimicrobial agents or preservatives in our lotions, fragrances, and toothpastes. They play a useful role in our products but can also be harmful to our health because they can disrupt our hormones, such as our thyroid, oestrogen, and androgen hormone pathways, and exposure to these chemicals have been linked to a wide range of health outcomes including obesity, gestational diabetes, and worse glucose tolerance.

 

Learn more about hormone-disrupting chemical compounds and what you can do to reduce your exposure from:

ATHLETE BiB Evidence Briefing- Harmful Exposure

Personal Care Products poster

What can you do to tackle urban and chemical pollution levels?

The first thing is to understand your exposure!

 

In the UK, you can check your local pollution levels using this handy checker. You can also look at live pollution levels from sensors from all around the world – see which ones are closest to you.

 

You can check if your personal care products and cosmetics contain harmful chemicals by checking them against products analysed by the Environmental Working Group or using apps like the Yuka app*

 

*note that these resources may differ in how they determine what is a potentially harmful ingredient. You can find how they calculate their risks on the EWG and Yuka websites.

What can you do with this knowledge?

 

Our research in ATHLETE found good evidence for steps that you can take to reduce your chemical exposure: such as purchasing safer products not containing phenols, phthalates, parabens, and triclosan, switching your food and drink storage containers to glass and stainless steel containers, and not heating foods up in plastic.

 

You can also take action and learn how to co-produce changes to improve your air and chemical pollution exposures with your local community and local stakeholders (find even more resources here!) or write to your local elected official to ask for change at a higher level.

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